My vision started to blur. My surroundings started to shake. Forneus began to change.
And then I heard it.
Gunshots.
Or at least I thought they were gunshots.
The demon seemed to notice it too because his head turned to the double doors of the black church.
It was all in my head. It was part of the hallucination. I’d seen things that weren’t real. I’d felt things that weren’t real. But I’d never heard gunshots, especially not ones so loud they made me flinch each time.
The horned demon left his chair, his long tail behind him, spikes all over his body, even his back. He opened a door and grabbed something, something with a handle, a weapon of some kind.
Then he walked out.
The gunshots grew louder.
I gripped the armrests as I felt my body shake. It was the tremors from the acid, or it was just the fear that surrounded me. I’d never crashed this hard, never put myself in a nonexistent war zone.
I grew restless, unable to sit and wait for it to pass. I had to move. Always had to move. Especially when the monsters crawled out of the shadows in the corners. I made it to my feet and stumbled to the door.
My body hit it, but it wasn’t a door anymore. It was a mountain, a solid mountain I couldn’t climb.
They were all behind me, snarling, their claws reaching for me.
“Not real…” I pushed against the wall, knowing it was the door, and found the handle.
The door swung forward, and I fell to the dirt.
The sunshine hit me hard in the face, and then the gunshots grew even louder. They came from all directions. The ground shook underneath me as I crawled forward, trying to flee the monsters that wanted to swallow me whole.
“Constance!”
I looked up, seeing the demon standing there with a sledgehammer.
And then I saw Benton…or at least I thought I did.
The demon gave a jerk and collapsed, the gunshot shattering my eardrum again.
“Baby.” Benton rushed to me on the ground.
I kicked him as hard as I could and let out a scream. “Don’t touch me!”
“Baby!” He grabbed me by the arms and forced me to still. “Look at me.”
I kept trying to fight, uselessly. The gunshots kept going, and I gasped in fear every time I heard them. My body spasmed, and I convulsed in his grip.
“Shit.” His arms scooped underneath me. “Baby, stay with me, alright? I need you to stay with me.”
I saw him. The demon rose once again, his hand reaching for the sledgehammer. I tried to get the words out, but I was too slow. “He’s coming…”
Benton didn’t have ample time to react. He turned, but then the weapon came down on him, and then he was gone.
“Ahhh!” This was real. “Benton?”
No answer.
The demon looked down at me, nostrils flaring, his horns sharp and dripping with blood. “My an-gel.” He turned away and raised the sledgehammer once again.
Come on, Constance.
My heart pounded as if it was about to explode, and my body wouldn’t obey my mind. Every thought I had took forever for my body to follow. But a jolt of adrenaline hit me, a cloud of focus, and finally, the world stopped shaking. “Benton…” I dragged myself forward then crawled, crawled as fast as I could, and got on top of Benton’s body.
It was all I could do.
“Move.”
I looked up at Forneus. He wasn’t the demon anymore. He was the man, with dark eyes that showed a glimpse of the underworld. There was a haze in the sky, but I could see the blue. I could see the clouds. I could actually see. And I could see the bullet wound in his chest, the stream of blood pouring out.
“An-gel. Move.”
I swung my leg as hard as I could, kicking his leg from underneath him, his heavy body hitting the earth.
The sledgehammer dropped too…
Come on, move.
I left Benton and scrambled for it, but it was so heavy. I clenched my teeth and picked it up, but it was so cumbersome I couldn’t even wield it. All I could do was keep it away from Forneus so he wouldn’t smash Benton into pieces.
Forneus was back on his feet, his aggression on me now.
Good.
He walked toward me, my vision starting to transform him back into the demon.
No…gotta focus.
I did the best I could to defeat it, but it was a losing battle as more of the acid dropped into my bloodstream.
But if I didn’t do this…Benton would die.
I gripped the handle. You’ve got this, bitch.
Forneus came closer and closer, his powerful arms rigid by his sides, horns on his head. Fangs protruded from his mouth, dripping with blood. He stared me down before he lunged at me.
I couldn’t move with the sledgehammer, so I let it fall to get out of the way. I spun around, throwing my elbow wildly for anything that could cause injury. I hit him somewhere in the back, and my elbow immediately fired off in pain.